New on Colony Bay

The Life of Riley

Episode 2

Cobblestones (test pilot #2)

Jim recruits Harmon and Oz to cobble together a plan for a long overdue project.

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The Life of Riley

Cobblestones-Full Episode Apr 18, 2016

Trailers / Free Content

Episode 1

Country Scholars - Etiquette

Young scholars visit Riley's Farm and learn a few things about 18th century etiquette.

Trailers / Free Content

Ep 1 - Country Scholars Feb 6, 2016

Trailers / Free Content

Episode

Fall Afternoon with Jim Tavaré & The Bost Family Traditions

It's a foot stompin' good time when Jim Riley is joined at the Old Wilshire packing shed by British actor, comedian and Courage cast member Jim Tavaré, his wife Laura and the Bost Family Traditions bluegrass band.

Trailers / Free Content

Fall Afternoon - Tavaré Oct 1, 2015

Tavern Talk

Episode 6

Richard Hanna - Part 2

In part 2, Mr. Hanna talks with Jim more about his service in World War II, whether we should have dropped the bomb, his postwar days as a tommy gun-toting adventurer and the current threats to American freedom.

Tavern Talk

Richard Hanna - Part 2 Aug 25, 2015

Tavern Talk

Episode 6

Richard Hanna - Part 1

World War II veteran and longtime friend Richard Hanna drops by the Hawk's Head Tavern to talk with Jim about growing up during the Great Depression and his service in the war.

Tavern Talk

Richard Hanna - Part 1 Aug 5, 2015

Riley’s Farm Podcast #2

HARD TRUTHS AND SOLID FICTIONS:  Jim and farm maintenance manager “Oz” Hunter bring the week to a conclusion over drinks on Grandma’s porch.  In a wide ranging discussion covering Jim’s lazy past as a lazy teenager, unusual animal sightings, and what happens to a farm employee when they draw the dreaded black stone.

Brought to you today by Strawberry Robotics — Computer Critters With Helping Harvest Hands…

Riley’s Farm Podcast #1

Explosive stuff: James Riley and farm media director, Jonathan Wilson, talk about a dangerous William Shatner film, farm cows who dance to a different beat, chicken drama, and dynastic bee struggles.

Unbelievable!

Pastor Randy Gibson

Tavern TalkThis may scandalize a few of my Baptist and Nazarene friends, but I hope heaven will be something like a tavern.  I can’t imagine the Lord High King of the Universe objecting to good food, fine wine, and stories well told; and, so long as we all understand we’re not talking about perpetual servitude, how could He object to tavern maids bringing you beer?

Some of my best memories have taken place in grills, bistros, steak houses, taverns, and night clubs, because — so long as the music isn’t too loud — that’s where we all covenant to relax and share good conversation.  If I had my way, I would tavern and pub my way through England and Ireland, collecting stories.   Could there be a better life?

So that’s what we’ve set out to do with “Tavern Talk,” celebrate conversation, ideas, food, and drink, more or less in that order.

This week’s episode with Pastor Randy Gibson is no exception.  Randy is a California native, Methodist pastor, father of three, and a good friend of Riley’s Farm and Colony Bay Productions.  In real life, we talk film, theology, culture — and that’s what we did here too, covering Methodism, George Whitefield, pastoral counseling, the Bill Gothard scandal, and Randy’s expert-level exposure to the frustrations of enduring Lyme disease.

Tune in! Watch the Free Preview below or the Full Episode Here for paid subscribers.

Tavern Talk: Phil Lollar

Sound Effects, Creative Tension and “Adventures in Odyssey”
Part One of Our Phil Lollar Interview on Tavern Talk

Phil Lollar

We invited Phil Lollar, the co-creator of the very successful radio drama, “Adventures in Odyssey” to stop by the Hawk’s Head Tavern at Riley’s Farm to talk about his new show “Iliad House.” He graciously accepted. (Can I just say, for all its foibles and on-again-off-again political correctness, how much I love Facebook? It brings people together, if nothing else.)

Phil is a gentleman and a dream guest for us at Colony Bay, because even though he’s had enormous success in commercial radio, he’s a big believer in new media and the digital revolution.  You might be surprised to hear what he has to say about the future of entertainment.  Tune in!

 

John Adams [Video]

blog_playThis is the chatty, gossipy, dismissive side of our 2nd president. You’re going to love hearing what he has to say about the John Green family of Stafford Springs, Connecticut.

People pick on John Adams, but he didn’t spring ex nihilo out of the New England mist. America was built, in large part, on the Puritan work ethic, and John Adams lived that ethic so well, even a trip for his health began to wear on him and seem frivolous. (He will call it, later in his journal “an idle jaunt.”) If Yelp had been around, Adams might have made landlords and tavern keepers bolt their doors. He judged a household on four standards: activity, industry, care and economy.

How would you measure up?  How would any of us?

See what John Adams has to say about loungers and slackers and un-milked cows on ColonyBay.TV.

For the paltry price of $17.76, Members get four hours of period drama, two new Courage webisodes, our new “Life of Riley” pilot, and everything we produce for the next 365 days. Join the cause, and the family, today.

 

NEW: Veteran Screen Actor Returns to the Courage Tavern

In a crowded New England tavern, after a court of general sessions, Merry Pugwell (Chris MacDonnell) can’t sleep;  he shakes off a nightmare and wakes to find Simeon Trapp (Basil Hoffman) in similar straits.  Anxious for company, Pugwell initiates a conversation, but the news Trapp has to offer leaves Pugwell worried his nightmare is just beginning…

Basil Hoffman with Jean Dujardin in The Artist

Basil Hoffman with Jean Dujardin in The Artist

I pinch myself having an actor (and friend) like Basil Hoffman willing to play a part in Courage, New Hampshire.  Talk about working the extreme ends of the spectrum, Basil has appeared in All the Presidents Men, Ordinary People, The Artist to name just a few of his feature films, many of them Academy Award winners.  Soon, you’ll see him in an upcoming Coen Brothers film, Hail Caesar.  He’s worked under directors Alan Pakula, Robert Redford, and Michel Hazanavicius.  His first speaking part, poor guy, was opposite Sophia Loren, but he’s played opposite Donald Sutherland, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Emily Mortimer.  His television career has been no less varied.  He’s appeared in The West Wing, LA Law, Hill Street Blues, Matlock, Falcon Crest, The Twilight Zone and dozens more.  From a casting director’s perspective, he’s got the credentials — big time.

Basil Hoffman as “Simeon Trapp”

He’s also an incredibly humble and thoroughly professional craftsman.  It doesn’t matter if he’s on a Warner Brothers sound stage or standing in a cornfield on Riley’s Farm, he comes to work with the lines memorized and the part pondered, in great detail.  He’s the absolute perfect working example for young actors — take it seriously, make friends, work hard, and get called back.

And guess what?  He’s written the book on acting — literally.  Check it out, complete with an introduction by Sydney Pollack.  With cast members like this, ColonyBay won’t always be a $17.76 a year subscription.   Better get in on the action, while the price is right!

New on Colony Bay: Don’t miss this NEW Courage, New Hampshire webisode featuring acclaimed Hollywood character actor Basil Hoffman.  It’s free with our seven day free trial offer AND you get the first hour of Courage New Hampshire free.  Start binging!

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Vignettes from Courage, New Hampshire

 
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New on Colony Bay
:  Alexandra Oliver & Lorraine Pope in “Before the Travail”  If you haven’t seen episode one of Courage, New Hampshireour seven day free trial offers the hour long episode up free, along with two new Courage, New Hampshire webisodes.

“House Arrest” isn’t just a reality in the era of digital ankle bracelets.  During the early years of our nation’s history, very few small towns could afford to have built anything like a jail, so suspected criminals were routinely placed in the care of a constable or justice of the peace, often at their own home, or tied up wherever convenience might dictate.

In the first episode of Courage, New Hampshire, British sergeant Bob Wheedle (Nathan Kershaw) is suspected of kidnapping and is consigned to the care of Noah Pine, (Jonathan Salisbury).  Later, when his identity is confirmed, he is released and sent back to his regiment in Boston, but not before the Pine family can argue about his intentions and care.  It will be another year, before he returns to find that he left something behind.

"Bob Wheedle"You can watch the first hour of Courage, New Hampshire and this new backstory webisode by signing up for our free seven day trial here.

In this era of the quest for an instantly share-worthy moment, we’ve been debating what to call these small pieces of Courage.  “Back Stories, vignettes, webisodes, scenes.”   As you can tell from the title sequences, we’re still not sure.  We don’t want to limit ourselves entirely to “back story,” since some of the action will be on the side of the main story, and depending on how protective we are about show-spoiling plot details, some of them may actually be embedded in future episodes of Courage.

Future episodes of Courage?  Is that possible?

Yes, we’re very much dedicated to telling a story about the moments before the Revolution, from the perspective of common people. Our plan is to release bits and pieces of Courage, encourage you to share them, and join our video platform for the paltry sum of $17.76 a year.   The future of intelligent television is down this road.  Start the journey!

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Noah Pine

Noah Pine — Jonathan Salisbury

 

The Life of Riley

Join the Colony and Watch “The Life of Riley”

Is there anyone over twelve years old in the English speaking world who hasn’t heard these words at some point in their life: “they should make a reality show about you?”

culpritI doubt it.  We certainly hear it a lot.  When you consider our situation here — modern people attempting to re-create, on a California farm, the life of 1776 New England, complete with muskets and redcoats and tavern maids, well, that really is what we do, and it certainly seems to be a candidate for reality, or sitcom, or documentary or something.

The creator of Arrested Development, Mitch Hurwitz, told me as much over breakfast one morning, but he wasn’t the first. We’ve known the family story was worth telling, almost from the first day we put a shovel in the ground.  We had declared it to ourselves: “we’re turning the clock back.  We want to live in the past — at least partially in the past, in a big urban area where people will appreciate our living the past, because if you really tried to live in the past, odds are you would be arrested.  Right?”

The Riley’s Farm project has always had that comic edge, because turning back the clock is difficult. Someone wants to be an 1840s mountain main, but he’s 150 pounds overweight, and he can’t make it to the camp without a walker, and he demands certain exceptions to reality.  A “British Redcoat” falls in love with everything English, and in doing his research, he can’t understand why the American Revolution even took place.  If the founders had only consulted with him, he could have straightened it all out.  You yourself want to recreate an 18th century tavern, but feeding everyone out of an open hearth fire, um, wow.. it’s really difficult, and probably illegal.

Getting back to the past is hard work, but it’s something we put our heart into, and, frankly, the entire Riley family has never really liked reality shows as a way of telling our story.  They seem cheap, contrived, and we all decided we would never turn over our lives to an actual Hollywood production team, because we tried a temporary version of it once — and it wasn’t pretty.  Reality show producers, to put it bluntly, are liars.  They claim to care about you, but they don’t.

So we told our own story — and it was a lot of work.  We argued about it quite a bit.  We edited and re-edited the script.  We argued about the cuts, and the music, and, well, just about everything. It took us a long time to even agree on the concept, but after two years, we’re proud of our pilot, and we think it’s the basis for more fun, more laughs, and more celebration of a country we love.

It’s true that if you want to see it, you’ll have to pay $17.76, but look at it this way:  you get 4 hours of period drama in the package as well, (Courage, New Hampshire) and everything else we produce in the coming year.   We consider our viewers part of our production family, and we need a big family to produce more drama and comedy.

Join the Family.   Join the Colony.   Join the Fun.

Life of Riley — because who says reality is all that great, anyway?

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Magic for the Masses

Can little independent companies produce a
television channel you’re willing to pay for?

A few days ago, my fourteen your old son Gabriel re-discovered the visual wizardry of a young guy who can create glass-shattering car accidents without getting anyone hurt.  He can bring down skyscrapers without real-world tragedy. He can build entire underground command bunkers without NORAD’s budget.   Andrew Kramer and the smart people at Video CoPilot (he must have a team, right??) sell reasonably priced software tools that let you command time and space in a way that would have cost studios millions of dollars a decade ago.

Gabriel asked me to spring for $149, and I think he only had to ask 3 times, over 18 hours, before I relented.  Last night, in a few hours, this was his first attempt at a new Colony Bay opening:  (Turn up the speakers)


Of course, he had the help of Sarah Bond’s cool compass and Rotem Moav’s beautiful music, but can you imagine what that sequence would have cost in 1985, or 1995, for that matter?

ColonyBay LogoIt’s all a bit of a metaphor for what we’ve been trying to do at Riley’s Farm and Colony Bay Productions.  We live in an age where there really is no technical excuse for NOT making a film if you want to, since the little guy really can produce material that doesn’t have to announce “amateur” with every frame.  All of the production tools are getting cheaper and the means to get them to the entire world are too.  (Yesterday, I sat, transfixed, watching Google Analytics real time global map of people checking out our new site;  for some reason, people in Brisbane, Sydney were taking an interest.)

If we’ve been quiet here for the last few months, it’s because we wanted to invest our time and money into building a platform (this one) where we can finish a show, upload it, describe it, and let you watch it without having to re-tool and re-design our site for each new production.  We’re concentrating on four shows for now — Courage, New Hampshire, Life of Riley, Primary History, and Tavern Talk, and our proposition to the market is fairly simple:  $17.76 for a year’s subscription and you can watch anything we produce.  Yes, we can never compete with the Amazon or Netflix library, but our audience is unique to us, to our interests, and our take on life. If the audience is anything like me, $17.76 for ongoing independent production is worth the trip to the back pocket.

cb_logo2But, why am I doing this?  I ask myself that question all the time, because I have to admit — it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m competing against both free content almost everywhere and multi-billion dollar production mechanisms that churn out extravaganzas like Ridley Scott’s Exodus:Gods and Generals. This one comes to mind because I watched it for the first time last night, and while I don’t think it’s anything like a Biblical account of the story, you have to marvel at the visual tools that make you feel, for a moment, you are in ancient Memphis, in the shadow of an epic, ancient collonade.  The crowds, (virtual and real), the costuming, the massive scale of the production, for someone like me, is both liberating and intimidating.  It’s liberating to know we live in an age that allows people to experience the cruelty of building the pyramids without having to feel the stripes, but also intimidating because from a purely business perspective, why would anyone in their right might pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a project that has no guaranteed customer?  Why is this done?  By anyone?

The answer, for me at least, is that I don’t want to be the field marshal of such a production, because I’m convinced we’ve come to settle for all sizzle and no steak these days.  We can recreate an intergalactic universe, but we can’t find its heart, because we’re too afraid to find God’s great truths in God’s small moments.  We invest in the sexy cynicism of “House of Cards,” but what we really want is that final scene in the Coen Brother’s True Grit, where Rooster Cogburn begs a heart attack, running to save Mattie. We tell ourselves that a continuous-take, self-referential piece of dreck like “Birdman” deserves a “best picture” nod, when we’re aching for something simple and honest and flirtatious, like “Stone of Destiny.”   We put on 3D glasses to watch the Titanic sink, but we ache for the honest, observing eye of a John Cheever or a Flannery O’Connor.

Our standards aren’t high enough, in other words.  We have a generation that doesn’t appreciate film, because it has never really had to wrestle with good story.  We’re visually over stimulated and spiritually underwhelmed.   We want to see, on the screen, a conversation as challenging and redemptive as the stories my dad, and Uncle Blaine, told over the barbecue, beneath the pine trees.  They weren’t flashy, but they were funny.  There were no stunts, but there was truth.

I’m not saying I can do that.  Very few people can.  But I’m going to keep trying.

Are you with us?